Scary Horror Stories by Dr. NoSleep - I’m a lifeguard for a pool that is only open at night

Episode Date: February 2, 2022

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The pool complex I work at is pretty typical, if rather large. It's not in the center of the city, it's closer to the edge, and as such has loads of space to work with. There are gyms and courts and several large pools that it's comprised of, all interconnected with warm and pleasantly humid plexiglass tunnels, extra appreciated at this time of the year. Sometimes as I'm walking through one such tunnel in my shorts, sandals and lifeguard shirt, I'll catch a glimpse of someone outside, shivering through their coats in

the snow, and I can't help but feel relieved to be on this side of the glass. My boss is an eccentric lady, the manager. She laughs and smiles a lot, but damn if she doesn't always look so tired, it's like I can see the stress aging her in actual real time. She needs to take it a little easier, is what I think. We're just leisure facility workers, after all. I consider telling her this in a meeting she's called me into. However, I'm not too concerned. We get on well, and I'm a good employee. I try to think of a diplomatic way toward my sentiments, but she begins to speak before I have a chance. How long have you been working here now, Dan? She asks me, tapping a finger against the desk. about a year, I think, a reply, and there is a pause.

I can't quite put my finger on it, but something suddenly changes. The atmosphere becomes a little more strained, a little more tense. I shift uncomfortably. Kate, my boss, glances up from the desk and over my shoulder. I turn around to see one of my colleagues behind me through the open doorway. Nice guy. He's been here longer than me. I think. But the moment my eyes meet his, he turns away and heads off and a way out of sight.

I look back to Kate and the silence stretches on. I manage an awkward laugh, but she does not smile. Employees that have been with us for as long as you have, Dan, are given the opportunity to earn a little extra money. Ah, okay, I reply. Eyebrows raised. She rubs her wrist absent my mind. She rubs her wrist, absent She was candidly, running a thumb over the V she has tattooed there, as she looks at the wall and thought. We run night sessions here sometimes. Did you know that? she says, still not looking directly at me. For real? I ponder this. No, no, I didn't know. Is this a recent thing? No, she replies, and does not elaborate any further. More silence. I shift with discomfort in my seat. The air is, as it always is in the complex, humid,

but goosebumps shoot up across my arms regardless. Kate, is everything okay? She rises from her chair. Come with me, please. Silently I stand, and I follow on beside her as we walk through the complex. The complex stays open pretty late into the night, for the gyms at least. but the pools will be closing in about 10 minutes.

It's dark, and aside from the falling snow, I cannot see much of anything beyond the glass when we pass through the tunnels. Dan, once employees have been with us for a year, their hours get reduced, somewhat. I start to protest with surprise, but she quiets me. Don't panic. Your pay remains the same. It goes up, actually. But once a week, we'll need you to spend a few. few hours in the night pool. I try to process this. A few hours at night. Why haven't I heard anything about this? As I said, it's just once a week. She leads me down corridor after corridor,

through a set of locker rooms and past our least popular pool. Nothing wrong with the pool itself. It's just an unusual shape and a little further out of the way than the other three. Kate It leads me through one of the doors at the back, past steaming pipes and whirring filters. Round a corner we go, beneath a blinking emergency exit side, and I find myself starting to get a little anxious. My gut is telling me something, but I don't know how to respond. So this? This is the way to the night pool, then? I ask.

That's right, she says quietly. A pool that I didn't know about in the night. Until just now, for a session I didn't know even existed. Kate says nothing. And we find ourselves at the top of a tiled staircase, one that leads down, and down into the humid gloom. Kate wavers on the top step. She grips tight to the metal rail.

Then, with a slow sigh, she descends. And against my better judgment, I follow. down into the dark. Kate's sandals clack against the tile as we go down, and mine echo softly behind as I follow. This is pretty creepy, you know? I say with a weak chuckle, but again I receive no reply.

My breathing becomes shallow. Kate, I say to no response. Kate! I'm sorry about this, Dan, she mutters. I'm sorry, all right. But this is what we need from you. And we arrive at last at the base of the stairs before an open, tiled arch in the wall. The world beyond is red, we read, as the room is awash in nothing but red light.

Jesus, I murmur and disbelief, stepping forwards, and together with Kate, we head through into the secretive, underground pool. A deep, soft humming sound rumbles overhead through the pipework. water drips from somewhere unseen. I look around and try to take it all in. There stands a lone lifeguard chair by the edge of the pool. There are some lockers against one wall, and as for the pool itself. The pool is rectangular, as one would expect,

and the water is dark, black almost, in this light. But the most curious part are the seven rivers. The pool, despite, White at its core looking much the same as any other, have seven offshooting waterways. They stretch off and away through gaps in the tiled walls, through watery tunnels, leading away into the dark. Kate, come on, what is this place? Kate grabs me suddenly by the shoulders, and I swear an alarm, heart pounding in fear. Dan, she says, her eyes staring desperately into mine.

Just do your job. just for two hours. Just sit in that chair and do your job. You must. You hear me? You must. And she speaks with such cold conviction, such force of will that I cannot help but be swayed, to believe in what she is saying. So, so I just sit there and, and what? And do your job, she says again, releasing me. She is shaking. Two hours tonight. Then next week, I'll need you to do two more. I'll have greater flexibility with your daytime hours, and you won't need to come in quite so much either. Thank you. I'll be upstairs if you need me.

Wait, that's it? You want me down here right now? Alone? Kate looks away and wipes her eyes. She starts to walk back to the arch. Kate, wait. Is this a joke? A prank?

She shoots a look back at me over her shoulder. Her expression makes it very clear that this is no joke. Two hours, Dan, she says, as the pipes hiss and the filter hungrily gurgles in the gloom. Just two hours. Then I'll see you upstairs and you can go home. And with that, she departs, leaving me alone with the underground pool, bathed and red. I stand there for a minute, just gobsmacked, unsure what to do. This is insane.

This creepy-ass pool, all empty and a little. alone down here in the darkness, I look around once again, at the seven tunnels. Where the fuck do those even lead? I wonder aloud. I look over to the lifeguard chair, a still and silent sentinel above the dark water, and I glanced to my watch. Two hours. She wants you down here for two hours. I wander over to the chair, my footsteps suddenly sounding much louder in the eerie quiet. The water laps and churns softly against the rim of the pool near my feet. This is crazy.

This must be a joke, surely. I should just go back upstairs and refuse. But I don't. Something about Kate's manner really frightened me. So I'll just do it this one time, see what the big deal is, and then make a decision from there. So I clamber up into the lifeguard chair and settle myself into place. The lone watcher

Over a sea of black and red The water churns The humidity pin pricks my skin with sweat And I watch I watch the water As is my duty Nothing happens by the way Not this first time

I start to feel a little queasy As the hours draw to a close But I put that down to just a little dehydration And when my time is finally done I jump from the chair and hasten away, not wishing to spend an extra second in this unsettling place. Kate is gone by the time I return upstairs and through the complex to her office. So I simply go home and bring it up with her the following day. Kate, I tell her, I don't want to do this.

You can keep the pay and the flexible hours. Just don't send me back down there again. Dan, I'm not going to discuss this with you again. I'm sorry, but this is just the way it is. Kate, look, it creeps me out, all right? I don't. You will go down again. No, I won't.

Yes! She shouts. You will! Slamming a hand down onto her desk, and silence falls in the immediate area. She pauses, then bursts into tears with her face in her hands. I don't bother saying anything further. I just walked down. What is that?

there to say. I speak to one of my colleagues a little later that day, a guy named Rex. I ask him about the pool, and if he has any answers for me, you just have to do it, he mutters, eyes downcast. If you don't, then it'll fall to somebody else, right? How long has Francesca been working here? You like her, right? I stutter and reply. I mean, I don't know about that. How long has she been here now, man. Well, about 11 months, I guess. Eleven months. Yeah, that's right. Rex doesn't say another word. He just rubs his wrist tattoo and thought. I look down and make the connection for the first real time that it's in the exact same place as Kate's. It's of three eyes, positioned next to each other. I mean to ask him about it, but he just claps me on the back and strides.

away. So a week passes. A week passes and I find myself again at the top of those gloomy stairs, the ones descending down into the red shade. I scratch my arm in thought, is my job really worth it? I think to myself. Is it worth it to go back down to that awful place? You're choking, right? Comes the rebuttal. It's two hours of sitting on your ass. Two hours and you get to keep one of the best jobs you've ever had. You like it here. You've just been given a raise. It's two hours in a red room. Man up and get the fuck down. Fine, I think to myself, steadily descending the tiled stairs. But there's something else going on here. Something is not right. And I'll find out what it is. Kate barely looks me in the eye these days. Something's seriously

up with her. And it's scaring me. I take a deep breath as the levels of light lower and shift to a more total. I step down onto the damp-tiled floor of the lowermost level and walk cautiously through the arch and into the pool room. As before, it's entirely empty. One pool with seven offshooting rivers, rivers that run through tunnels in the tile, leading away through the dark,

and the lifeguard chair, waiting patiently for my arrival. arrival. I head over and climb on up. Sitting with my hands clasped, I look out over the face of the water. It's dark and black. It swallows the feeble red light and softly churns, demanding more, perhaps. I stare at the water, waiting, and willing the time to go faster until I zone out. There's movement. I am shocked from my careless dozing, but what I assume to be movement in the water. In a panic, I grip the sides of the chair and lean forwards, eyes wide, and staring at the very center of the pool. My heartbeat is suddenly rapid and painful.

I wait, and I watch. Waiting for confirmation of what it is that I saw, hoping beyond hope that it was nothing more than my imagination. I stare at that spot in the pool for a minute or more, and just as my heart is beginning to slow, and I'm allowing myself to relax, I see it again. It's subtle, but it's there. A small splash in the water, a ripple and a churn. Fuck, I mumble, then a little louder.

Shit, shit, shit. It's just the filter, perhaps, bubbling from the bottom of the pool. But as if in response to this thought, the splash comes again. And I watch in cold horror as the water rises and steam drifts from the pool's surface. A long, dark shape slithers its way through the red shadow towards me, then slinks back down below and into the deep. Fuck this. I have ten minutes left on the clock by my count, but I'm done.

I'm out. I leap from the lifeguard chair and stagger my way across the slippery poolside time. back through the arch to the steamy underground back rooms and up the stairs and into the complex racing through corridor after corridor Kate is still here tonight I find upon my arrival at her office face red and breath shallow what the hell is this Kate I shouted her tell me tell me what the fuck is going on you think I wanted this she mutters in a low voice leaning forwards she doesn't seem surprised by my upburst in the slightest you think I wanted to be part of this hell, Dan. She scratches at the V tattoo she has on her wrist. We do our duty as lifeguards. As lifeguards? I allow myself a laugh and throw out my hands. This is insane. Tell me, Kate, what exactly is in the pool below our complex? She looks at me, and she looks at her watch. You left your position early, she says. No one is watching the pool. No one is watching them. No one is watching

the... I begin. Then I stop, close my eyes, and take a breath. Kate, I say to her. I quit. And without another word, I turn and stride from her office. I leave the complex behind, shivering in the snow. And despite how much I used to love my job, I intend never to return.

I intend... That night, I suffered from terrible, terrible nightmares. In them I find myself struggling to breathe, coughing and spluttering. My lungs fill up with putrid, dark water as I scrabble for the surface. The surface that only ever gets further and further away, its direction keeps changing. And I'm being watched. They're watching me through the water. I lose count of how many times I awake during the night, and by 5 a.m., I am too terrified

to return to sleep. I spend the next day seeking new employment. But that night, the dreams are the same, if not worse. The next night they came back, renewed, and the night after that. I find myself unable to stay awake during the day. The dreams find me at any hour. I am too exhausted to cook proper meals. I stop trusting myself to drive my car.

And when I can't take it anymore, I am right back in Kate's office, disheveled and desperate, and I ask her, How do I make them stop? How do I stop the dreams? She stands and steps over to me. She draws me into a hug. Just do your job, she says softly. You're a lifeguard. I am sorry, Dan.

I'm so, so sorry. There is no other way. So I return to my job. Once a week, I do my shift in that awful, monstrous subterranean pool. Sometimes the water remains still. Sometimes the nights are entirely uneventful. And sometimes I see shapes slithering round in the darkness, disrupting the pool's surface. And my greatest fear remains that one day, one of the things in the water is going to clamber

up onto the tile, and I will not be able to summon the Constitution to escape. The nightmares only come the night before my shift these days, and they are not as intense. But I can handle that. I can deal with it. They are only as heavy as is needed, I suppose, to remind me to do my duty, to do my job, to watch the water, week after week. My duty goes on. How long do I have to do this? I ask Kate. I ask Rex. I ask the others who have been here longer than myself, but none of them give me an answer. And one day, something happens that is worse than my greatest fear. Worse than one of the things in the darkness

climbing up into the light. And it's so predictable. I can't believe I didn't see it coming. So classically, painfully obvious that I consider myself an idiot for not preparing for it sooner. I am forced to do my job. My job as a lifeguard.

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The conditions apply. It begins as any other. I am uncomfortable and scared as I sit in my chair. As I watch the water quietly churn and listen to the pipes above me hiss and rumble. Perhaps it's going to be another quiet one, I hope, preemptively. Perhaps there will be no disturbances tonight.

And that's when I see him. That's when I see the boy. A kid, a human boy just drifting through one of the tunnels, down one of the rivers and into the center of the pool, paddling and pulled along by an impossible current, one that I cannot see. Help! He cries out, and I can see the fear on his face, washed and read.

Dad, Dad, where are you? I cannot believe what I am seeing. Hey! I shout. Hey, kid, over here! But the boy does not react to my voice. He simply looks all around himself, spinning in a circle, calling out for his father. Dad, where are you?

His voice echoes around the tiled walls as the deep red light shimmers across the face of the water. Kid! Hey kid! I try blowing my whistle. He does not react. I jump down from the chair to the tile and wave my arms. But the kid just can't see me. It's as if he's looking right through me when he turns my wife.

and the poor little lad starts to cough. He's swallowing mouthfuls of water, and he sputtered and chokes. His strokes become more erratic as he keeps on calling for help. He is drowning, and the only one who can help him is me. My blood runs cold as I see further disturbances in the water, at the far edges, dark and slithering shapes, and Kate's voice blairs like a siren through my head. Do your job!

As a lifeguard, you must do your job. Time seems to slow, a little. I watch as the boy starts struggling for real, as he begins to dip below the water, splashing him crying out for help. For help. But of course, I am the only one who can hear him. I grit my teeth,

with my jaw set, my blood, once cold, now surging. It fires me up with a blast of adrenaline. I take a long step forward, then another. It feels slow, but I am moving fast, I can tell. I follow procedure without even realizing. Three quick blasts of the whistle, and I have shot myself forwards from the edge of the pool. I am diving forwards, leaping from the edge,

and out towards the darkness of the unknown. The boy is a few feet ahead. He draws closer and closer. And I hit the water with a great splash and a rush of bubbles burst up past my ears. For a moment trapped in time, I am adrift in the void, lost and alone in the watery darkness. The pool is impossibly and unfathomably deep.

I cannot see the bottom. Something massive and slow lurks far below me, a shadowed thing that writhes with motions like the waves of a dark sea against the bitter shore. And I know that whatever it is can see me. All around in the water, the slithery shape struck. closer. Time returns to its regular speed as I burst up for air and power through the darkness towards my target, towards the boy, lost, alone, and in need of help. I've got you! I sputter as I shake

off the void and grab him beneath the arms. Immediately turning, I power my way towards the edge with the boy trembling and shaking behind me. Arms and legs pumping as fast as I am able, though I cannot lose that terrible feeling of being flanked by the things in the water, getting closer and closer, closer, closer. I do not know what would happen if they were to reach me, but they do not. Not today, at least. I reach the edge, and with a roar of strength, I bring around the boy. Holding him to my chest, I clamber clumsily up and onto the side.

I roll away from the edge of the pool, still clutching him, as I try to put as much distance between us and the water as I am able. Shooting a look back reveals those menacing dark shapes slink quietly back into the depths. And I come to an exhausted halt, looking down at the boy and moving to help him sit up as I catch my breath. But there is no boy, not anymore. Just a boy-sized shape comprised entirely of water. And the second that I comprehend this fact, the water acts as one would expect it to. It just melts right through my hands, splashing down across the tiles and washing over and away.

A solid and then formless. Gone. Still panting. I push myself up to the wall. I rest myself against it, soaked, and I just sit there for a while, processing. trying to think, to put it all together, and failing. Feeling a subtle itch on my wrist, I look down, and there, forming before my eyes beneath the pool's red glow,

is an eye, a thin, dark eye. It looks just like a tattoo. What does it mean? I asked Kate, upon the completion of my shift. I stand before her bedraggled and afraid at the complex end. entrance. I had to rush out to catch her before she left. The snow barrels down and the Arctic wind burns my wet skin, but I don't care, not at this moment. The lights through the complex doors behind me send my shadow out long across the snow and illuminate Kate's face and shine in her

eyes, eyes that look sadly back into mine. The wind sends the tails of her coat billowing out to the side. What does it mean? A shout above the gale. showing her my wrist, and she draws down her sleeve to reveal her own. The V. Seven souls, she whispers, and a voice I can barely hear. Seven rivers, seven tunnels, and seven souls to be saved. And then we can be free. I don't understand, Kate, please! Seven souls, Daniel. She says as she looks back up at me, and a voice rich with sorrow with apology. with warning and with hope.

Save seven souls, and your duty is done. We are the sentinels, and their lives are ours to guard. And without another word, she turns, and walks away and into the storm.